Outbreak of polio among Syrian kids confirmed

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 12:01 AMOct 30, 2013 at 10:44 AM

DAMASCUS, Syria - The U.N. confirmed an outbreak of polio in Syria for the first time in over a decade yesterday, warning that the disease threatens to spread among an estimated half-million children who have never been immunized because of the civil war.

DAMASCUS, Syria — The U.N. confirmed an outbreak of polio in Syria for the first time in over a decade yesterday, warning that the disease threatens to spread among an estimated half-million children who have never been immunized because of the civil war.

The grim finding added another layer of misery to a brutal conflict that has killed more than 100,000 people and uprooted millions.

The aid group Save the Children urged a “vaccination cease-fire” to try to prevent an epidemic of the contagious disease.

Meanwhile, hopes for a negotiated settlement to the 3-year-old conflict appeared ever more distant as Syria’s President Bashar Assad fired a deputy prime minister for meeting with Western officials to discuss the possibility of holding a peace conference.

At least 10 cases of polio among babies and toddlers were confirmed in northeastern Syria, the World Health Organization said — the first outbreak of the crippling disease in 14 years. Nearly all Syrian children were vaccinated against polio before the civil war began.

WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer said the U.N. agency was awaiting lab results on an additional 12 suspected cases, mostly children younger than 2.

“This is a communicable disease. With population movements, it can travel to other areas,” Rosenbauer said. “So the risk is high of spread across the region.”

Regionally, neighboring Lebanon and Jordan are likely to be at particular risk because the two countries have absorbed the bulk of Syrian refugees fleeing war-torn areas.

The polio virus usually infects children in unsanitary conditions who consume food or drink contaminated with feces. It attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze, spreading widely and unnoticed before it starts crippling children.

UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said his organization and WHO planned to immunize

2.4 million children throughout Syria. He said he had begun discussions with senior Syrian officials to access war zones but hadn’t started negotiating with rebels.

“Vaccinations and immunizations have absolutely no political content. They have no relationship to any military issues, and therefore there is every reason … (to) believe we will gain access into these communities,” he said.

Syria said it had launched a vaccination campaign across the country days after the Geneva-based WHO said it had received reports of children showing symptoms of polio in Syria’s Deir el-Zour province. But the campaign faces difficulty with lack of access.

Save the Children urged a “vaccination cease-fire” in Syria “to prevent the current polio outbreak from turning into an epidemic.”

The group’s chief executive, Justin Forsyth, said if the international community and the Syrian government could allow U.N. chemical-weapons inspectors to fan out across the country, it could do the same for aid workers. But armed clashes and government blockades have prevented medical workers from reaching rebel-held towns, activists said.

Meanwhile, in a setback to efforts to bring an end to the conflict, Syrian Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil was fired yesterday after meeting in Geneva with the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford.

The meeting on Saturday was to discuss the possibility of holding a peace conference next month in Geneva, State Department spokesman Jen Pskai said.

The decree relieving Jamil of his duties said he was fired for “undertaking activities and meetings outside the homeland without coordination with the government,” the state news agency SANA said.

Assad has said in principle that his government will attend talks, but it will not negotiate with the country’s disparate armed rebel groups.

Also yesterday, unknown gunmen shot dead Mohammad Saeed, an activist in Aleppo province who was a source of information for international media.

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